


Good Boy

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cumplay, Empath Abuse, Fingering, Forced Orgasm, Gaslighting, Humiliation, I am so sorry, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Punishment, Rimming, Shota, Tears, Utter Filth, Will is very underage, headmaster schoolboy au, public fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:52:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3179372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Come here to me.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>Will goes, nearly stumbling over his own feet, and finally bending to tug his sock up his leg, only to feel it slip down his calf a moment later. He stands as he had in the corner, hands behind his back, head down and lip between his teeth, though he keeps his feet straight for the moment, doesn’t pigeon-toe them again.</i></p><p>  <i>“I thought you were a good boy,” Doctor Lecter sighs, resting his elbow against the arm of his chair, fingers curled to press against his cheek. He watches Will’s brows draw, before adding, “I thought you were my good boy.”</i></p><p>Steph requested utter filth from me and I can't not oblige a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WarpedChyld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpedChyld/gifts).



> I am sorrynotsorry about this.

Will waits, hands behind his back and head ducked, cheeks flushed torrid red and hair over his eyes. He watches the feet that file out past him, and out the door to go to the next class. He wonders how it is both his rotten luck and utter delight that Doctor Lecter had taken over this class to substitute today. Today of all days, when Will had finally listened to Jimmy and threw the little airplane at Brian two rows in front.

He turns his toes towards each other. One of his socks having slipped lower than the other, but he doesn’t bend to tug it up. He doesn’t move at all beyond how his fingers fidget behind him, curl and twist together in nervous anticipation. One of the boys pokes him as he leaves the room, laughing quietly that the quiet, smart, friendless Will Graham will finally get his comeuppance, and a proper caning.

Will waits. He waits until the shoes no longer populate his vision. He waits until his name is called, in that same warm low tone that Doctor Lecter uses when he has Will in his office for a talk, to touch, to -

“Will, are you listening?”

Will swallows, looks up, eyes wide and flush pink over his nose. He nods, watches Doctor Lecter’s eyes narrow and shakes his head, cheeks darkening at being caught at the lie.

“I said come here to me.”

Will goes, nearly stumbling over his own feet, and finally bending to tug his sock up his leg, only to feel it slip down his calf a moment later. He stands as he had in the corner, hands behind his back, head down and lip between his teeth, though he keeps his feet straight for the moment, doesn’t pigeon-toe them again.

“I thought you were a good boy,” Doctor Lecter sighs, resting his elbow against the arm of his chair, fingers curled to press against his cheek. He watches Will’s brows draw, before adding, “I thought you were my good boy.”

Will swallows, sniffs a breath and parts his lips to apologize but the doctor stops him with a brief gesture. He sits up, opens the top drawer of his desk and Will’s eyes flick to it immediately, wide and fearful, knowing what he keeps there.

“It was unacceptable behavior, Will,” Doctor Lecter says, eyes on the contents of the drawer, expression almost wistful as before him the boy starts to tremble, “first throwing things in my classroom, then lying to me when I asked you a direct question. Good boys don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers, it’s so quiet the doctor barely hears him, but he does hear the intake of breath, the little shudder to the last word that almost breaks on his lips. He allows a moment pause before continuing, as though Will had not spoken.

“What is the punishment for such insolence, Will?”

Will trembles harder. “Five strokes of the cane, sir,” he whispers, eyes bright with tears that are welling at the thought. The doctor hums, turns as though to reach into the drawer.

“And for lying?”

Will makes a sound, very gentle, and swallows. “Five strokes of the cane, sir,” he breathes.

“Over a bare bottom,” Doctor Lecter reminds him, and Will starts to shake in earnest, just watching here the doctor’s hand rests just within the drawer before he pulls the hated implement from it and sets it to the table with a click, a supple bamboo cane. He watches Will shake a moment more, wonders if the boy will work himself sick with anticipation and it is almost worth the wait to see if he does, before he has a better idea, a far more pleasing way to pass the afternoon free period.

“Should I be lenient?” He asks, tone lightening just enough for Will to exhale in a rush, nod his head quickly, bring his eyes up to meet the doctor’s. He was so close to tears, this sweet little boy, and the doctor had not yet laid a hand upon him.

“Please,” Will says, and bites his lip immediately after, hands working slippery together, palms sweaty where they clasp hard together behind his back. The doctor hums, before gesturing Will step closer, turning his chair, as he does, to set his legs wide on either side of the boy before him where he stands.

“And what do you suggest I do, Will, instead of meting out your earned punishment?”

He watches the boy’s lips part, beautiful, red things, chewed dark in the boy’s terror of the cane. The boy swallows, runs his tongue, nervous, over his lips before swallowing again.

“I -” he starts, so soft the doctor can barely hear him.

“Speak up, Will.”

“I’m -” a swallow, little throat working, pulse hammering where the doctor keeps his eyes on it before blinking and letting them slip to the blue, wide ones that meet his own. “I will take any leniency, headmaster, and thank you for it.”

An excellent answer, and not even practiced. The doctor allows a smile, watches as Will hones in on the expression, as his brows draw tighter. Any other boy would be relaxing, pleased by the words but not his boy, not Will Graham who sees so much and understands it all. He knows the things he can do to not earn the cane. He knows the things that will be asked of him, and he fears them just as much as welts against his thighs.

“Come closer to me.” The doctor says, waiting until Will does, before sitting up and drawing his knuckles warm over Will’s cheek, the boy shuddering and turning into the soft gesture as he always does, as he always has, so starved for touch and love that something so small pulls from him a full-body response. “Stay still, right where you are.”

Will does, swallows, blinks his wide eyes open to direct them to the man before him, his friend and protector, and the man who abuses him with the softest touches and the kindest words.

The doctor draws his fingers down Will’s front next, over his little tie and to the buttons beneath it, down to his brown belt and the shorts he wears. Without a word, he starts to undo the belt, letting it hang loose as his fingers move to the button on Will’s pants and the little boy shivers again.

“Headmaster, please, you said -”

“- I would be lenient.” The doctor confirms, meticulous in baring the boy for his hands, little cock curled in his briefs before those, two, are pulled down to reveal him, and Will stays stoically still before him, cheeks burning, lips pressed tight together, eyes shining with tears again.

“My beautiful boy,” the doctor sighs, sitting back to look at him, as Will closes his eyes and trembles in front of him, bared and embarrassed, skin flushed pink from his cheeks down his neck, down to his little cock. The doctor feels his pulse quicken, allows it to.

“You will stand for me,” he says, “legs spread and back arched, and I will punish you with my hand until I feel you have earned the punishment’s end. Do you understand?”

Will swallows, eyes still closed but lashes stuck together already, with nervous tears. He nods. The doctor allows a smile, while the little boy can’t see.

“Look at me and answer me properly, Will, or it will be the cane.”

It seems enough to jerk Will from his reverie, to blink his eyes open and part his lips. “I understand, headmaster,” he boy breathes, bites his lip hard as the doctor raises an eyebrow, expectant, “thank you, headmaster.”

“There’s my good boy.” He praises, and Will shudders at the words as he had at the gentle touch. The doctor knows he doesn’t like this, has seen the way the boy has cringed, squirmed when he had touched him before, had stroked him until he was shaking, hands fisted at his sides and whimpering the most beautiful sounds. He knows Will doesn’t like this, and he will touch him regardless. Because it is a punishment. And because the doctor will make his little boy enjoy it.

“Set your legs wider,” he instructs, watches Will duck his head to keep his balance as he does, “now bend for me, set your hands right here,” he taps his thighs and waits for the boy to set his sweaty little palms against them. The doctor hums, sits back to look at the boy, legs spread and back arched, holding on to him and looking so beautifully, utterly punished already.

“Look up.” Will, very reluctantly, does. “Now you will stay still for me. You will take your punishment like the good boy you are, and you will not make a sound, do you understand?” Will nods, shaky little things, “The door is open, my sweet boy, and I would hate for someone to interrupt your punishment before it’s done.”

Will turns quickly to check, eyes wide and shaking his head when he turns it back but the doctor is already touching him, palm down to stroke against the head of his cock, feeling it twitch in response, despite the boy’s determination to not enjoy this, he always does. He always will. He just has to teach the boy to admit to it, and beg for more.

A few strokes has Will’s cock curved up to his stomach, not fully hard but enough to bring out his blush darker down his neck, then the doctor’s hand ventures around his hip, over his briefs still as he sets his fingers against the curve of the boy’s bottom, squeezing it just a little, spreading the boy enough to make him shiver again, but he stays obediently still. Fingers, next, down the cleft, pressing the fabric against Will’s little hole that he had touched not three days earlier for the first time. He smiles when the boy clenches against him, tries to move away.

“Do not.”

The boy stops moving, with a soft noise, pleading, and eyes up. The doctor looks, he takes it in, he allows the boy a softening of his expression before working his fingers in a slow walk over the fabric of his briefs, gathering it beneath his fingers before gently pulling away, and touching his fingertips to the hot skin between Will’s legs.

“Wider.” He commands, watches the boy shake his head, press his lips together, tears brimming on his eyelids now, but as silence greets his similarly silent begging, Will slowly sets one foot wider, then the other, and whimpers quietly when the doctor rewards him with a gentle stroke over his hole.

“That’s my good boy,” he sighs, breathing hitching already at the sensation of his boy so vulnerable and spread, “you like this, don’t you? You pressed back against my hand when I did this to you in the office, you wanted me to keep touching you.”

Another shake of the boy’s head and he ducks it, humiliated. For a moment, the stroking continues, then fingers turn harsh, grasp one cheek of Will’s bottom hard enough to elicit a pitiful sound.

“The cane, for lying, Will, be truthful.”

“Please, sir -”

“Truthful, Will.”

“I liked it,” Will whispers, “it felt strange, it felt nice.”

“Better.” The doctor turns his head, just to look over Will’s shoulder towards the silent corridor, before tilting his head a little and raising his free hand to lift Will’s chin. “Look at me. Eyes on me.”

When Will does, the doctor turns his hand, presses his finger past the tight little ring of muscle and into his boy, drawing his lips wide, a cry sharp from his throat that Hannibal stops with a palm against his mouth.

“Stay quiet, or so help me I will whip you for being a bad boy.”

Will mumbles something against Hannibal’s palm and closes his eyes on a sob, tears warm against Hannibal’s fingers where he holds him silent. He is beautiful to watch, and the doctor pushes his finger in all the way to the knuckle before pulling it free and doing it again. Will is trembling, unable to stop, tears rolling free down his cheeks now in hot drops that smear over Hannibal’s hand when they hit it.

“Now you’re my good boy again, taking your punishment so well,” the doctor sighs, watches as Will’s shoulders visibly relax at the praise, eyes open but stay down. Hannibal keeps his hand against him, feels Will’s shaking breaths against his skin. “We’re nearly done, you’re being so good.” He assures the boy, waits until he raises his eyes before smiling. “Now, my sweet boy, you will push back against my hand, take it all the way in like I pushed it in before. You will do this until I tell you to stop, and you will thank me, do you understand?”

Will sobs again, nods, hair in his face and sticking to his cheeks where tears have caught it. The doctor peels his fingers from Will’s lips one at a time, until the boy draws a shuddering breath and bites his lip to keep quiet.

“Move, Will.”

It takes two more commands, a threat, before Will bends his knees a little, his back, and presses back against the doctor’s finger, long and harsh inside him. The tears don’t stop, they seep and slip and slick down the boy’s face as he cries, and fucks himself back as he’s told, the friction painful, jarring, the doctor turning his finger to stretch the boy further as he continues to rock back against him.

The doctor hears it first, the sound of someone walking down the hallway, quiet steps but shuffling, nervous, someone skipping a class, perhaps, or very, very late for one. Will hears it too, looks up with wide, wild eyes as the doctor shakes his head, does not release him.

“Bend your knees further, you can take more.”

“No, sir, please -”

“Do not deny me, Will, this is a leniency that I will immediately take back for insolence.”

“Please, sir, someone might see -”

“Bend. Your. Knees.”

Will sobs, crying in earnest now, but obeys this too, bending his knees and pushing harder back against the doctor’s hand. One stroke, another, and the doctor brings his hand up to wrap around Will’s shoulders, turns to press his own arm to the desk, and hushes Will as he sobs and shakes against him, as someone passes the door and looks in, seeing only a little boy finding comfort in the arms of his mentor.

The doctor waves them on, concerned for the boy against him, and the other runs past, pleased to have been let off so quickly, so easily by the headmaster himself.

Against him, Will is shaking, sore and crying, upset and humiliated, and worst of all, cock leaking clear against his stomach. The doctor soothes him, removes his hand and settles the briefs over the boy’s bottom again before sitting back to watch, Will still with his legs spread, one hand up to wipe tears from his eyes, the other down to cover himself.

He is exquisite.

“Do up your pants,” the doctor says, “do not touch yourself today, the entire day. And when it is finished, you will come to my office.”

“Why?” Will whispers, quick to work himself back into his clothes as the doctor smiles, pleasant, warm.

“Because I need to reward my good boy,” he replies, “and I intend to do so, thoroughly.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You know it’s very rude to decline a gift,” he informs the boy, and the little rush of air that Will sighs is so utterly satisfying that Hannibal must remind himself not to be cruel to the boy._
> 
> _As beautiful as the thought is, he must not be cruel to him._
> 
> _Not now, anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who I got involved in this depravity!
> 
> That's right, we're both knee-deep now.

Will fidgets in all his classes, squirming in his seat and trying to keep his eyes to the blackboard, trying to be good so he isn’t punished again. He fears seeing the headmaster at every turn, as though the man is watching him from every corner and every classroom, but Doctor Lecter does not appear in the hallways or by the staff room when Will passes it, and he fidgets more, instead, knowing where the man is waiting for him.

He dallies, knows that he will perhaps be told off for it, called on it, but he does regardless, back against the hard wooden wall as he runs his fingers over it for the sensation alone. Anything but the gnawing, coiling, very, very nice one between his legs.

And he had been good, hadn’t he? And he had been promised a reward for that.

Will bites his lip, torn between running to the headmaster’s office and running the other way. Surely it wouldn’t matter if -

Surely -

Will considers the disappointment, the way he would not be able to look the man in the eye again and it hurts so much, just that thought, that he finds himself turning to make his way to the heavy dark door behind which Doctor Lecter works.

He knocks, carefully, three times, and sets his hands behind his back to wait, head down and hair in his eyes. He notices that his sock is down again, bends to fix it, and hears the door open right then. Of course, it would be right then.

"Hello, Will."

The headmaster's attention first skims the office, empty now but for the front desk secretary trying to finish up for the day, and only once assured of her distraction does he lower his eyes to regard the boy straightening slowly in front of him.

So very, very close in front of him.

Hannibal's smile widens.

"You're late." Will's throat works as he swallows and the sight of it forces a slow breath through the headmaster's nose, held deep before he steps back to allow Will inside. "Were you waylaid? I know your last class of the day is only just down the hall."

He ducks his head as Will takes little steps into the office, another glance to the secretary as she shoulders into her coat and glances to him. "Should I stay?" she asks, and Hannibal offers her a warm smile.

"No need," he answers. "Have a lovely evening."

And the door clicks shut behind him.

Will fidgets more, gently tugging the sleeves over his hands and tries to slip them further into the sleeves so they disappear. His clothes are a little too big, bought for him new to grow into but he doesn’t seem to be growing at all. And his parents never call to ask. Never care.

No one does.

Will’s eyes raise up to Hannibal, the man standing regal and tall before him, his greatest wish and harshest tormentor all at once. He swallows hard, shakes his head, nods, bites his lip and tries to make himself as small as possible.

“I waited… waited outside of class for the rest of the students to go,” he says softly, setting his hands clasped before him, blushing at the sensation before shoving them behind himself instead, fingers curling together as they had earlier that day when he had waited for his punishment. Now he waits for his reward and feels just as nervous.

“I didn’t want to bother you before… the school day was up.” He looks up, quickly away again, cheeks warm. “I’m sorry.”

“You must have been very patient to wait so long,” Hannibal remarks, a mild praise but enough that it lights a ruddy glow across the boy’s cheeks. He is charming, a shy and winsome thing, smaller than the other boys his age and eminently more reserved. Well-behaved despite there being little need to be, with no discernible interest from his parents, few friends and no one in particular that he needs act so well to impress.

No one but his headmaster, anyway, who passes just behind Will - close enough to touch with no more than a lift of his fingers, near enough that Will shivers and his fingers clench more tightly together.

The lock to Hannibal’s office snaps shut, enough of a noise in the pervasive silence to startle the boy.

“Are you nervous, Will?” Hannibal remains standing, to watch Will’s lips part dry in his anxiety. “You were very good today, what cause would you have to be so anxious?”

“I -” Will swallows, directs his eyes down, shifts his weight, curses his sock for slipping, again, and presses his feet closer together. He’s been uncomfortable most of the day, unable to concentrate on anything but what the headmaster had done to him, how humiliated he had been, how good it had made him feel despite how humiliated he had been…

...or perhaps because of it.

Will closes his eyes and steadies his breathing.

“I don’t know if I deserve a reward when I was bad today,” he tries. He wants to go to his room, to curl up on bed and bury himself beneath the blankets and touch until the feeling goes away and he can breathe again.

And he wants and is scared that when Hannibal touches him it will feel better than when he does it himself. 

Hannibal tilts his head to the side, training his expression to a stern neutrality, lips thinned and eyes just scarcely narrowed. “You know it’s very rude to decline a gift,” he informs the boy, and the little rush of air that Will sighs is so utterly satisfying that Hannibal must remind himself not to be cruel to the boy.

As beautiful as the thought is, he must not be cruel to him.

Not now, anyway.

A broad hand is set against Will’s shoulder and he draws up tense, eyes lifting, lower, lifting, lowering to his shoes where he scrapes the toes together. “It is also a bad habit to fidget so much,” the headmaster adds. “Set your hands upon the desk, and see how still you can be.”

Will starts forward but stumbles a little, reaching for his sock, before Hannibal clucks his tongue.

“Hands, Will. On the desk.”

White-knuckled from where he’s gripped his fingers so tightly together, Will spreads his palms over the smooth, shining wood, unable to see Hannibal behind him, only the neatly stacked and organized notebooks and files before him. His arms shake as he tries to hold himself still, unable to take more than the shallowest breath, and closes his eyes.

“I was - I wasn’t good today -”

“No,” agrees Hannibal. “Not at first. But then you were very good. And good boys deserve good things when they behave well.”

Warm fingers grasp the hem of Will’s sock, and Hannibal inhales deeply as he slips the white cotton up to Will’s knee. His fingers fan across one skinny calf, up higher still across a knobby knee to a silky thigh, only a few downy hairs beneath his hand as he teases just beneath the hem of Will’s shorts.

Will tenses, shifts his leg to squeeze against his other and press Hannibal’s hand between, trying to stop the movement, the clear path upwards.

“Stay still.”

Will breathes out, curls his fingers against the desk and trembles, tries not to move, tries not to do anything at all when Hannibal’s fingers slip against the bottom of his underwear, slide slowly beneath. He doesn’t want his fingers again, he doesn’t want it to hurt like it did before, sharp and stretching and so strange, entirely strange.

“Relax, Will, I’m not hurting you,” the headmaster soothes, and Will nods, agrees, he isn’t. Not yet. But… “My good boy.”

Will shivers, the intensity of the words enough to relax his entire being, soothe his muscles to laxity as he feels the older man’s hand slip higher against him, cup his bottom and move to the front, making Will jerk with how sensitive he is, how both good and bad it feels to be touched there.

“You didn’t touch, did you, Will?”

Will shakes his head, cheeks red, eyes closed and fingers pressing hard to the desk. He hears the warm purr of a sound, the pleasure in that, and bites his lip. He didn’t touch, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to be bad, even if he was so scared to come here, he did not want to be bad.

Hannibal’s hand hardly fits beneath the boy’s underwear and his snug uniform shorts. He seeks the warmth between Will’s legs, fluffy hair just starting to curl, his little cock soft as velvet as Hannibal’s fingers stroke against it. The headmaster looms over the boy, oppressing him with size and presence to fondle him with teasing tugs.

“You won’t touch again, will you?” asks the headmaster, his voice as rumbling as the purr of a big cat. Will shakes his head, ducked so that his curls fall into his face, but that won’t do at all if Hannibal is to see the miserable pleasure that will turn his cheeks dark and bring tears glittering to his long lashes. Lifting his free hand, Hannibal runs it back over Will’s hair, to clear it from his eyes and tilt his head back just enough to manipulate a curve into his back.

“Good boys don’t touch,” Hannibal adds. “Touching is a reward, Will, but it’s hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it? Whether you’re being good or bad. Do you trust me to tell you when you are?”

Will doesn’t know. He doesn’t know when one moment the headmaster is a trusted friend, kind, who lends him books and helps Will learn, and the next he has him sitting on his knee, hands slipping over places Will only ever touches in the shower, alone. 

And it feels good. The worst thing is that it feels good.

And who else will know what he is if not Hannibal? Who else will know if he has been good, if not the man Will seeks to please with everything he does at the school? He swallows, leans into the hand against his face, tries to stay still as he is against the desk, despite how much he wants to move, now, away and towards all at once.

He nods, instead.

“Then I will tell you that good boys become good by understanding what they did wrong,” the headmaster murmurs, lips against Will’s temple as he keeps touching him, keeps stroking his soft hair gently from his face, “and taking their punishment for it just as they are told, and you did that very, very well, Will.”

Will’s breathing shudders from him and he presses his thighs together a little more, flushed deep pink and closer than he has been all day, to that blissful release he finds himself sometimes. To that blissful release he has been told he can’t have until he’s touched, here. Because he’s earned it.

Because he’s a good boy.

Will makes a sound, weak and needy, and shivers, and suddenly the touches stop entirely.

“No, please,” Will turns, eyes wide, lips parted, squirming not to find that friction again, to feel Doctor Lecter’s hand there. “You said I was good, you said I could -”

The curl of fingers in Will’s hair is as gentle as Hannibal can be for the boy to still feel it, and it takes no more than that to silence his sweet protests. “I remember what I said,” the headmaster says. “And I keep my word, Will. You know that.”

His fingernails pull lines across Will’s thigh as Hannibal retrieves his hand from beneath the boy’s shorts, tented stiff now even despite Will’s discomfort. Instead, Hannibal slips them beneath the waistband of his shorts, and begins to slip them down over narrow hips, baring him inch by embarrassing inch.

“You must trust me,” he reminds Will, a note of warning in his words. “If you cannot trust the things I tell you, then who can you trust? It would be very lonely to be here without a friend,” clucks Hannibal, loosening the hand in Will’s hair to instead frame his hand against the boy’s scalding hot cheek. Will tilts into it with a pained sound, always starved for touch, for affection of any sort.

And Hannibal is entirely too willing to provide it to him.

“You will have your reward,” he assures the boy again, careful to keep his own intake of breath quiet when the shorts slip down beneath the curve of Will’s plush little ass. “And if you are very still, and very quiet, it will be an especially nice reward for you. Can you do that for me?”

Will nods, quick eyes to the door, locked but still just a door, just holding people at bay but not sounds, not little noises that he knows he’ll make. Will lifts his feet obediently as the shorts and briefs are removed, baring him to the man behind him. Will tenses again, bottom squeezing tight before he forces himself to relax, is rewarded with a gentle stroke over his skin by a broad, warm hand.

“You are my good boy, Will, I know you can.”

A pause, brief, before Hannibal takes Will gently around the waist and lifts him, earning a surprised little yelp from the boy as he’s set to the desk. Hannibal smiles, hushes him as Will swallows, sets his hands against his thighs as his knees settle to the edge of the wood, confused a moment as to why he’s there.

“Set your hands forward, balance yourself out.”

Will swallows, regards the expanse of the desk before turning back to look at the headmaster, at eye level with him now, as he sits.

“Like a dog?” He asks, finds the older man just watching him a moment before swallowing, letting his lips spread into a smile.

“Just like a dog,” he confirms, and Will turns back, does as he’s told, though it leaves him entirely vulnerable with his bottom in the air like that, bare in the cool air of the room. He shivers as his legs are gently clasped, moved to spread a bit more, and Will wants nothing more than to cover himself up, sit back and just wait for his reward that way. But instead he trembles, on all fours and spread for the man behind him, who keeps praising him with soft words and gentle strokes of knuckles over the insides of his thighs.

Hannibal moves slowly but it’s still enough to startle the boy when he grasps his little cock again, stroking firmly where it hangs between his legs. Will’s breath hitches, smothering down the moan, the protest, the sob that already threatens to fall past his lips, and he folds his arms in front of him, forehead against them to muffle even the jerky little gasps he manages. It brings his hips higher, his rosy cheeks spread even more, and Hannibal sighs hot against his hole, eliciting a shaky noise that Will tries too late to stifle.

The headmaster waits for Will to quiet again, his belly rising and falling quick where his shirt has slid higher, and Hannibal only then spans his hands across Will’s bare bottom, pressing the pert cheeks apart with his palms. His little hole twitches, perfectly pink and wonderfully warm when Hannibal sets his lips against it, and spreads his tongue wide.

The only thing sweeter than the untouched taste of him, the softness of the skin gathered tight around the boy’s muscle, the way Will jerks forward as if scalded, is the sound he makes - an agony of unwanted pleasure, quieted where Will’s mouth presses to his arm.

Will crosses his ankles, finds them gently but firmly uncrossed again, palms against them to make sure he stays still this time before moving away to touch again, before that hot feeling returns that sends Will’s body pitching and his stomach to his throat in fear, disgust, worry, need…

“Why -”

“Because I want to make my boy feel good,” Hannibal tells him, voice rougher than when he spoke before, and Will wonders why. He wants to push up on his arms properly and crawl away but he can’t, he’s paralyzed in his fear and pleasure both.

“I want to make my good boy feel good.”

Will bites his lip and picks gently at the desk before him with a chewed nail. He tenses again, relaxes, feels the hands spread and hold him again and holds his breath in anticipation of this, unsure if he wants it or wants to get away from it.

“Hold your pleasure, Will, until I touch you again. I promise it will feel so good, you will not regret your patience.”

Will trembles harder, toes curling in his shoes, hands curling on the desk. He understands but he doesn’t know if he can, his cock bobbing between his legs even with the slightest motion, already pink and sensitive from all day rubbing against his underwear, all day being told he cannot touch. He doesn’t know if he can be that patient.

But he wants to be good, so he nods. He wants to stay the good boy, to feel those words curl in his stomach, warm and comfortable, every time the headmaster sees him.

Will whimpers when he feels Hannibal’s tongue again, and closes his eyes, biting his lip, to try and be good. And it _feels_ good, it feels too good, so tickling and funny and warm and Will wants to push back and bend more, and he does, little back curving and knees slipping on the desk a little wider. And trembling, always trembling, as he tries to keep quiet.

Hannibal wishes he had kept the cameras in the office operational. It isn’t worth the risk, perhaps, but what he wouldn’t give to see from a distance the way that Will curls his hands against the desk, clenching them into fists when Hannibal strokes his tongue along his hole again. What he wouldn’t give to see the curve in Will’s back, the despair in his eyes when his body moves back despite himself to meet the heat of Hannibal’s lips again.

To see his lips part on a silent, choked sound and his cheeks bloom scarlet when Hannibal circles his mouth against his quivering opening to suck the tender skin now reddened when he draws away to see his opening glistening wet.

He trusts that the boy will stay still now, and lifts a hand to run along the small of his back, pressing a little to arch him more, drive his hips higher as Will pushes back on reflex to seek him again. Will’s feet shake against the desk, toes curled hard, his entire body wrought with an unfamiliar tension that Hannibal imagines sears as hot through the boy’s belly as it does his own.

Hannibal presses his thumb up from behind the silky skin of Will’s balls, grins, unseen, as they tighten when he pushes higher still, against his opening. The hunger gnaws at him, to force it inside and listen to the gasp that would choke in Will’s throat, to split the beautiful boy in half and press himself rough inside of him and take him against the desk until he could not stay quiet, could not stay still, driving him into the unyielding wood until the headmaster satisfied himself inside of him, and praised him, then, for being a very good boy indeed.

But he must not be cruel to him.

Not now.

Not yet.

Will lets out a breath, trembling and soft, and turns his head a little, enough to see Hannibal behind him, enough to meet his eyes and bring his blush darker still, just from that, as the headmaster smiles. Will bites his lip.

“Will you touch me now, sir?” He asks, and it’s so soft, so sweet, Hannibal is almost tempted. Almost. He shakes his head, watches the boy’s eyes widen further, bright and wet already as he swallows, tries to press his thighs back together only to find them firmly spread again.

“I don’t -” he swallows, chews his lip, tries again. “I need to -”

“Do you want me to touch you so soon?” The question is accompanied by a tilt of the headmaster’s head, brows drawing together in gentle disappointment that his boy would not want to enjoy his treat to its fullest degree. “There is so much pleasure, more, for you to feel, my Will.”

Will trembles, closes his eyes and resigns himself. Not an outright acceptance but so obedient, so _good_. Hannibal strokes down his back gently, watching Will respond to the touch with a sigh, curling gently up.

“You are my special boy,” Hannibal tells him softly. “My good, special boy. No one else gets treats like this one, no one else is as good as you are, to earn it.”

A moment for the words to sink in, for Hannibal to watch with narrowed eyes as Will wars with himself against something he knows, _knows_ is wrong, and over something he wants to be right, with all his being and heart.

“Lift your hips, Will, like before,” he tells him, watches the boy make himself obey, present himself again in such an innocent, beautiful way. A perfect little specimen. Entirely his own. He tells Will he’s good again, strokes his thighs, but when he spreads him, this time, it is not to just taste him, but to entirely devour the boy, immediately pulling whimpers and little noises from him in his struggle to keep himself together.

“Please,” Will’s voice is so meek, so quiet, and entirely helpless. Moment by moment his breaths become pants become sobs, sweet little things, and still he stays still, shakes and digs his little fingers into the desk.

“Headmaster, please!”

Hannibal hushes him, just a susurrus of scolding, and he nearly groans himself when Will immediately quiets. His boy - his beautiful little boy - wants so desperately for someone to please, for a gentle hand against his back and assurance, comfort, touch.

What the boy yearns for are friends.

What the boy aches for are parents.

What the boy has, instead, is Hannibal.

His headmaster, who kisses open-mouthed and hot against his bottom, who traces his fingertips against his little leaking cock, who memorizes every fold of skin that gathers against his tongue and every kittenish noise he makes as he paws at the desk as if he could escape from the terror of his own unwilling pleasure.

"Don't you want to enjoy your reward as long as you can?" Hannibal asks, savoring the taste of Will on his tongue, watching as he fights with himself to move away, to cover his shame, to relieve himself, to do anything, and every time he twitches he forces himself still, until his pale thighs are trembling and his whole body shakes in resistance where he bows against it.

"I can't," pleads Will, the words a harsh whisper, trying even still to keep himself quiet, as well. "I can't -"

"You can," his headmaster assures him, and Will bites into his arm to stop the sob that wracks his body in response. "But it is your reward, my good Will." With a smile, Hannibal tugs his boy's little length again, his tiny cock curved hard and pink, and brings it back between his legs to wrap his lips around the tip and suck.

Will cries in earnest now, plaintive little sounds pulled from him as he begs for this to end, for more, for nothing at all as his voice draws long and shakes, pitching the more he is touched, tormented to near-madness with how good it feels, and how it shouldn’t.

And Will breaks, with a sharp little cry as his body gives in, as his synapses fire and misfire and all he can feel is pleasure and heat and _relief_ as he feels his cock twitch, as he cums in quick hot spurts against Hannibal’s lips and nearly collapses to the desk after, unable to hold himself up or steady, entirely overcome and shaking. 

And Hannibal allows it, watches his boy splay on the wood, legs spread and face pressed to the cool surface of it, tears slipping from his nose to the polished wood, and pooling there with steady droplets as Will’s breathing makes ripples against it. He is flushed and disheveled, shirt ruched up to just under his arms, skin that is bared all pink with blush and warmth, face red with humiliation and exertion and pleasure.

Beautifully debauched little thing. Hannibal considers how the boy would look if from between his spread legs leaked Hannibal’s own release, if his body convulsed, still, with shaking from pain and pleasure both, all at once, if he cried, loud and endless, just for him.

And oh, he would.

Will brings a hand down, not between his legs but behind himself to press between his cheeks, almost as though he’s covering himself, embarrassed to be seen this way when Hannibal would see him no other way. Will swallows, turns his head away and tries to bury it against the unyielding wood beneath him.

Hannibal runs a finger over his lip, the last stray drops of the boy’s release slick against it as he pulls it away, savors the headiness of it, the pure adrenaline arousal of the boy.

“In my mouth, Will?”

He can see, immediately, when Will tenses again, tries to curl in on himself.

“I gave you such pleasure." Hannibal allows a smile while Will screws his eyes shut, terrified of punishment and repercussion. "And you -”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I tried, I tried so hard."

For long minutes, Hannibal remains silent. He listens, first, for any noise outside of his door - in the office beyond - and hears no stirring. Certainly there would be, if not a much louder ruckus, if anyone had heard. If anyone were there. But there is nothing, no sound at all but the weak snuffling sobs of the boy on his desk.

Hannibal hums as a frisson teases down his spine, as during the crescendo of a symphony, the belting climax of the opera, a vicious shiver that raises the hair against the back of his neck.

He has never heard a more thrilling sound, and can only imagine what other glorious noises the boy could make for him.

"What's to be done about this?" Hannibal asks, the careful concern of a parent, a teacher, a trusted adult, and Will drags himself up to sit, dragging his sleeve across his snotty nose.

"I don't know," he mumbles, little glasses skewed across his nose and blurred with tears. "I - I tried," he sniffles, voice hitching. "I tried hard -"

"And yet."

Will's shoulders curl as he ducks his head, and an uncontrollable sob breaks from the sweet boy as Hannibal runs a hand warmly up and down his back.

"Do you know the words 'quid pro quo', Will?"

He shakes his head, and with shaking fingers pushes his shirt down to try and cover himself.

The headmaster allows him to see a smile now, kind. "It is Latin."

"Like the - the Romans," Will stutters, and he is rewarded with a gentle curl of fingers through his hair.

Clever, beautiful boy.

"Just so," agrees Hannibal, languidly circling the desk so that he stands facing Will instead. "It means 'this for that'," he tells him. "It means that one favor should be repaid in kind, and so should mistakes." He lifts Will's chin, and sweeps a thumb across one tear-slick cheek. "Do you understand?"

Will’s throat works as he tries to swallow and can’t, still too shaken, still too upset that he had not done well, not done as he should have. He brings his sleeve to his nose again and sniffs. He shakes his head carefully, before turning his eyes to the man before him, flicking between his dark eyes to try and understand, try to focus.

The headmaster hums softly, strokes the boy’s cheek again, adjusts his hold just so to stroke over his lips next, tugging the bottom one down just enough for Will to hold his breath, quickly curl it into his mouth when Hannibal lets it go.

“It was a mistake, my boy, a sweet accident, and one I know you will not make again if you remember. It is my job to remind you, so you do.”

Will trembles again, eyes liquid blue and huge behind his glasses, body trembling more and more as he does understand, as he does realize and directs his eyes, for a moment, down. He makes a sound, soft and pleading, down in his throat, and Hannibal tilts his head to just look at him, to marvel at this little thing sitting near-naked on his desk, kicking his feet back against it nervously.

“It is not a punishment, Will, it is a reminder. And it is an understanding.” He considers his next words, considers what he wants, from the boy, from the situation, from everything, lifts his eyes back to Will. “I want you to experience the pleasure I felt, in giving you pleasure.”

Will swallows, sniffs, presses his hands and their tugged-down sleeves between his legs to cover himself up.

“Pure altruism,” Hannibal breathes, and Will looks at him again, eyes wide, not knowing the word. But it hardly matters, Hannibal knows that he has his boy interested, that the words ‘good’ and ‘boy’, paired with ‘for me’.

Always for him.

He steps back, watches Will reach out before thinking better of it and clinging to himself again.

“Down to the floor, my Will," he says, watches the boy reluctantly obey, fidget when he does. “And down on your knees again, sweet boy.”

Will hesitates, considers the words, considers taking pleasure by giving pleasure, considers the Romans, and Latin, and being special. He thinks of how his knees are so red already, from pressing to the desk and bites his lip. He bends a little to take the top of his sock in his fingers, tugging it, before he obeys and sinks to his knees again, little and scared, determined to be good.

Sweet thing.

Hannibal brings his hands up to work his belt open, eyes on the boy before him who watches him rapt, flushed and almost sleepy from his own release. How much more beautiful, more debauched he will be…

“Open your lips, Will, let me see your tongue.” He says softly. And watches, almost in awe of the innocent little thing, as he obeys.

Every word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More ideas? [Run it by us](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/ask), and we will run it by [Steph](http://warpedchyld.tumblr.com/) and most likely get it approved.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Those lessons Will likes, those he remembers in fond nostalgia when pain pulls sharp in his muscles as it does now. He has been told that he will learn to take Dr. Lecter entirely, that he will learn to stretch and arch and feel him slowly push in. Will can’t imagine it. The doctor is too big. Surely, surely, he cannot stretch so much?_
> 
> A commission from the lovely [kmfh244](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kmfh244/pseuds/kmfh244) for more of this!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are very, very, truly, really sorrynotsorry that we are sorrynotsorry about this. We are.

The pains of an eidetic memory come not from the acute detail one recalls, but rather in the absences that one cannot help but notice. It is akin to a symphony with no violas, or a Renaissance portrait with no underpainting. Were all things as they should be, these pieces would go unnoticed beneath the greater whole. When they are missing, it is a discord.

And so Hannibal considers the presence - or more specifically, lack thereof - of little William Graham. As pristinely polished shoes carry him over a mirror-sheen floor, the headmaster moves upstream the flow of students to their classes, and among them he searches for the flicker of glasses, the wild curls of hair that twist forever untamed around his pale cheeks. On any given day, if Will were where he is meant to be, Hannibal would pass by him with no more than a glance.

But today, his absence is felt acutely. The boy has not been unwell - Hannibal would certainly have noticed the first dissonant chords of illness long before Will became symptomatic. The boy has not had troubles at home - he never has, despite his father’s persistent absence. Each step down the hallway creates a steady rhythm to which Hannibal times his heart to echo in grace-notes, creating in himself a drumbeat of rising alarm.

He is being avoided.

“To class, please,” Hannibal tells the students malingering in the hallway. He watches them go, hands folded behind his back, and continues back to his office. A call to the Graham residence perhaps is in order - if Will has taken to truancy, it would certainly merit an additional meeting.

His hand set against the door, the headmaster stops. There, so soft as to be nearly inaudible, are his violas. There, so faint as to be unseen by anyone else, his underpainting. On the air is a particular melange of newly pubescent sweat that tingles salty against Hannibal’s tongue, blended with a trace of animal dander and cheap orange soap, little more than chemicals. The headmaster holds his breath and on his palate the particular taste of Will Graham, as behind his lids he sees wide and glittering blue eyes and rosy lips, lily-white skin framed in a wreath of rosewood curls.

He does not bother to suppress the smile that Will’s scent brings to him, and passes by his own office to that of the secretaries and counselors and teachers.

Counseling is a scheduled period for some students, those that have permission from the nurse or their parents or the counselors themselves. Those students that need the time to talk their problems out and feel them vanish like smoke into thin air and into meaningless words on a page. Will has never been a student in need of such a thing. He has rarely been disruptive, and not troubled.

And should he have need to unburden himself, he certainly knows what door to knock on to have his words and thoughts and pleas heard.

Perhaps he has forgotten. Perhaps he needs a reminder that he will not so easily dismiss this time. Silly boy. Perhaps he has been told to go, due to a lack of interest in his subjects, due to lack of sleep or something more dire still. Hannibal does not for one moment imagine that Will had told, had spoken a word of their private lessons, their gentle education. Surely his good boy would not do such a thing.

And yet.

There he sits, swinging his feet so that only his toes scrape the floor, palms pressed together between his knees. His socks slip pool around skinny ankles, revealing pale legs and knobby knees. Wireframe glasses press precariously to the point of his nose, head bowed as if in contemplation, or perhaps in prayer.

It would be more fitting, then, to be on his knees.

The thought shivers up through Hannibal, and he sets aside the mail through which he skimmed with a murmur of thanks. He knows the moment that Will notices him from the faltering movement of his feet; he can feel the air shift when Will pulls into his chest with a silent gasp. Hannibal approaches with unhurried strides, and briefly glances to the name on the door outside which Will waits.

Alana Bloom.

Good.

“How are you this morning, William?”

The boy swallows, a small sound just enough to be audible that adds to the symphony already alive in Hannibal’s mind. He is nervous, staying as still as he can in favor of fidgeting as he so often does otherwise. There are bags under his eyes, suggestion that at least the night before, he had not slept.

But of course the night before he had not been in the office, he had been excused to do his homework and catch up on his classes. The night before he had not made soft little sounds against Hannibal’s chest as he held him.

It warms Hannibal to consider the boy missed him enough to lose sleep over it.

“I’m well, sir,” Will says softly, flicking his eyes up over the rims of his glasses quickly before slipping them away, towards the door that he waits before. “I was excused by Mr. Gideon for an appointment period.”

“I have no doubt of that,” the headmaster replies, warming his tone as one rosins a bow. “You have never been one to step out of line. I admire that in you.”

The words widen Will’s eyes, and then just as soon crease his brow. He lifts his eyes enough to reach the headmaster’s knees before turning back towards his hands, and crossing his ankles together. Hannibal watches, rapt, the shy little gestures, the suppression of a smile into a very serious look indeed. Sitting motionless, he is the picture of a well-behaved student - nothing at all like the wanton boy that bends so prettily over Hannibal’s knees.

“It is customary,” adds Hannibal, bending nearer, “to say ‘thank you’ when someone pays you a compliment.”

Before Will can loosen the breath held in his chest, the door beside them opens. Hannibal straightens and runs a hand down the buttons of his jacket to tidy whatever wrinkles may have insolently appeared in the hunter green wool, checkered through with stripes of cream.

“Dr. Lecter,” Alana says, eyes bright. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Checking the morning mail,” he answers with a soft smile, “and I could not help but notice that one of our best students had need of your services.”

Alana smiles, just as polite, and entirely pretty, and turns to look at Will as well.

“Will is a very good student,” she agrees. “I wish I didn’t have to call him into the office for a meeting but -” She turns back to Hannibal, gives him an apologetic look. “That is between Will and I. You understand, Dr. Lecter, you have never broken confidentiality of your patients either.”

“No matter their age,” Hannibal agrees, eyes narrowing in pleasure. He can see Will in his peripheral vision, watching the two of them speak as though he is spectating a tennis match, eyes quick between the two, widening a little at the familiarity between them. He sits up straighter when Hannibal turns just incrementally more towards him, and keeps his eyes forward as though he had not been listening in.

“Quite right,” Alana agrees with a laugh. “I’m sure it will go very well. His teacher says he is doing so well in his classes that he is permitted the one a week to miss to come and see me.”

Hannibal’s brows lift, and with a smile, his expression eases into a look both effortless and unconcerned.

“What a relief, then. I was concerned that something may be amiss, and perhaps I had been too otherwise occupied to notice.”

“Hannibal, you can’t notice every detail of every student,” Alana says to him, not without a hint of amusement. “I do admire you for trying though.”

He inclines his head, turning ever-so-slightly towards the praise as a cat leans towards a patch of sun, and then lets his eyes settle on Will once more. “Dr. Bloom and I have had a long history together, you see. I was her mentor at university, and I am pleased that she has, in her area of expertise, surpassed me entirely.”

Alana offers a good-natured eyeroll and arches a brow, giving Will a little smile as Hannibal sets a hand to the boy’s hair and ruffles his curls.

“You are in trustworthy hands, William,” assures Hannibal, before he motions with palms up towards them both. “If I can be of any assistance, you know where to find me.”

He watches Will stand to go to Alana’s office and offers her one more smile before she closes the door and leaves him in the hall. He takes his time getting back to his office, and while the period runs long, he begins his monthly reports.

\---

Will spends too long in the bathroom. He doesn’t even need to go, he has, already, but his body is sending confusing nervous signals at him and he can’t seem to bring himself to leave the stall. He knows school is over, he had heard the last bell not five minutes ago, and he knows, too, that he is expected. Just as he knows that should he not go on his own he will be found.

He bites the side of his thumb and considers his options.

He knows, in truth, that Hannibal does not hurt him, not intentionally. Everything is a lesson and lessons are rarely pleasant. He could go, he will go, he knows, eventually, but he hesitates still with the memories of his session with Alana - Dr. Bloom - in his mind. The things she’d said, the way she had looked at him so softly and promised to help if anything was wrong.

 _Nothing’s wrong_ , Will had lied softly. _I just get tired sometimes._

But that wasn’t entirely true.

He leaves the bathroom when the guilt tugging at him grows stronger than his reluctance, and he shuffles his feet on his way to the headmaster’s study.

It’s easier to go than to resist. He tried, when this began, leaving as soon as the bell rang, or dallying in distant corners until he was certain he could walk home without being summoned on the way out of school. It rarely worked, and even when it did, Hannibal’s displeasure had lingered for days after, every time Will stretched or sat. He didn’t care for being so stern, of course, and he always rubbed liniments into Will’s skin afterward.

His whispers were always the same, no matter how fast Will had fled or how much he disobeyed.

Dr. Lecter wasn’t angry - he was only disappointed.

Even the echo of those words tangles tight in Will’s belly. He squeezes a hand into his jumper to try and quiet it. At the end of the hall, music plays softly through the door to the headmaster’s office, slightly ajar. Will feels his feet move as if they weren’t his own, as if he were watching himself walk rather than inside his own body.

He stands as if waking from a dream at the doorway, and claps a hand over his mouth to quiet his voice as the headmaster says only:

“Hello, Will.”

Will swallows, turns to look behind himself to find the corridor - predictably - empty, feeling his bag slip off his shoulder as he turns back. He takes another gentle step forward, fully in the room now, and hoists his bag back up again.

“Hello Dr. Lecter,” he murmurs. He can feel the tension from the man, despite the music playing, or perhaps because of it. It’s rarely quiet in the office, with Will’s sounds, but when there is something else, something _pressing_ , music plays in the background always. Like a lullaby.

Will hears it in his dreams sometimes and it keeps him awake.

“I’m -” He furrows his brow and steps closer again, one tiny step at a time. “I’m sorry I didn’t thank you this morning. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry.”

“I accept your apology.”

The headmaster sits centered at his desk, all things neatly in order, and his hands folded together. He was waiting, Will knows, the only question is how long. Will feels his mouth drain dry and his pulse quicken, and presses his lips together to keep at least that much of himself small and hidden.

“Please,” Dr. Lecter says. “Set down your things.”

Will’s feet carry him forward, and he is careful to lower his bag to the floor without dropping it. The weight of the books makes it tip over, and Will’s hand wavers over it, uncertain whether to stand it up again or not. He does, and despite how hot his cheeks burn when he bends, he takes advantage of the moment to pull his socks up again.

“You were missed this morning.”

“I had a note.”

“Not from class, William. You were missed by me,” the headmaster says, tapping his pointer fingers together slowly. “Tell me - have you seen, or heard, a symphony?”

A stitch pulls Will’s brows together, and he looks to the record player in the corner, nodding once.

“There are many pieces that make up an orchestra so that it reaches its full capability. There are the very low end instruments - bass and tuba, bassoon and timpani. They lay the groundwork upon which the rest is built.”

Dr. Lecter’s chair rolls silent against the carpet, and he stands slowly.

“There are the more forward instruments as well,” he continues, languidly circling the desk. “Violins and flutes and cellos and trumpets, instruments that shout to be noticed, carrying the melody that defines a piece of music.”

He finally settles against the front of his desk, leaning back against it, just before Will.

“And there are the others. Violas and second violins, clarinets and french horns. The audience, unless of a particular ear, is unlikely to ever notice them. They blend, they support. They provide neither framework nor advancement, but exist only in the context of those around them.” He reaches, slow and visible, to set the side of his finger beneath Will’s chin. “And yet, were they to go missing, their absence would be felt profoundly. The symphony would be incomplete, lacking color and texture.”

Ignoring the soft breath that draws quick across his thumb, Hannibal presses it against Will’s lips, stroking delicate skin to watch it flush and bend gently out of shape.

“So it is with you, William. Do you understand your importance to me? Without you, the music cannot play. Without you, there is no symphony at all. Nevermind that others do not notice you - would not, ever, perhaps, except in your absence. I notice. And I appreciate,” the headmaster says, leaning near enough to rustle Will’s hair beneath his breath. “My good boy.”

Will shivers fully at the words, always enough to get under his skin and tug him in just _that way_ and he is helpless again. How could he be anywhere else, belong to anyone else, when he is Dr. Lecter’s good boy?

Will draws his lip into his mouth to bite, and feels the pull against it from the man’s thumb to release it again. So he does, on a breath, on a shivering whisper, and lets his eyes open as well, down still and not meeting the headmaster’s but no longer closed. He feels that warmth again, that feeling of being _needed_ , of being _noticed_ and _missed_. He feels it like a balm, like a warm hand through his hair, and makes a soft noise as the older man turns his head against Will’s hair.

“I slept in,” he mumbles, an apology for his absence from the office when he is usually there at an ungodly hour almost every morning for the man’s whims and designs. Will swallows. “I slept in and had to rush to class and -”

“And you did not come to me.”

The words sink just as deeply into Will’s skin, but rather than warm, they chill. Enough to ripple goosebumps along his arms, enough to make him shiver. He parts his lips a little as Hannibal tugs the bottom one down, skimming across the damp, delicate skin within, brushing across his teeth.

“You went, instead, to Dr. Bloom,” the headmaster reminds him, dark eyes seeking relentless across Will’s face, even as Will avoids his gaze, even as Will’s cheeks burn hotter under the inspection. “I wonder what you needed to tell her, William, that you could not tell me instead?”

Will swallows thickly and trembles. He feels that guilt again, that shame of not going to the man who he trusts, who gives him protection and friendship. Who gives him attention and care. He should have gone, he thinks. He should have gone and talked to him instead, and take whatever punishment the headmaster would have doled out for his being late to morning classes.

He hums softly and parts his teeth a little for Hannibal to press his thumb further into his mouth. Will curves his tongue as he had been taught to, to accommodate the bend of Dr. Lecter’s finger, and breathes through his nose as he gently folds his lips around, and sucks.

He wants to tell him that Dr. Bloom asked to see him, a follow-up from a message passed to her from another teacher, when a few weeks ago Will had cried in class. It had been the one time, and it had been a difficult week, and he had seen someone then. He had seen someone because he was too scared to see the headmaster. Just as now he had seen Dr. Bloom because -

Because.

Will sucks softly and releases Dr. Lecter’s finger as he pulls it free, with a little sound. 

“I didn’t want to burden you,” Will whispers. “I didn’t - you have a lot of work -”

The headmaster’s gaze lingers, and though Will tries to turn his head a little, shift his shoulders, squirm, he cannot shake the weight of displeasure.

No.

Disappointment.

Dr. Lecter brings his suckled thumb to his own mouth to stroke against his lips in thought. With a hum, he beckons Will closer once, and then again when Will does not move quickly enough. A little step brings him near enough to touch, and folding his hands behind his back, Will tries not to shake.

He fails, and begins to tremble uncontrollably when the headmaster curls his fingers through Will’s hair, squeezing softly.

“My work, William, is to be present and attentive to those who need me. My work is to discern where help is needed, and to provide it,” he reminds him, giving Will’s head a little shake. “What is burdensome is when my attempts to assist are rendered meaningless. Do you know how that happens?”

He smiles, soft and slow, when Will shakes his head. A simple tightening of Hannibal’s arm brings the boy’s body against his legs, and his cheek against his stomach.

“A lack of trust,” Hannibal answers. “Trust in the guidance I have offered you, and trust in my methods of teaching. Trust, William, which you now have shown me does not exist between us. I am not angry -”

“Please,” whispers Will, and though his voice is small, it is enough to give the headmaster pause. “I’m sorry.”

“Sweet, gentle boy,” Hannibal sighs. “What’s to be done about this?”

Will whimpers, just a little sound, and turns his head a little more into the man in front of him. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to make the headmaster not disappointed in him anymore. He doesn’t know how to tell him that he does trust him, that he will never tell others what they do here, that he will come to him, still, even if he goes to Dr. Bloom. He doesn’t know how to tell him that, so he trembles against him and closes his eyes when fingers gently scrape against his scalp.

Slowly, Will brings up a little hand to grasp against the doctor’s shirt and hold onto him, a childish gesture of trust and need. He knows what he could do, knows what he has done before to have the disappointment go away. He thinks of being bare again, he thinks of being touched and penetrated, he thinks of the hot kisses and wandering lips. He thinks of the time he had taken a spanking for being very disappointing, and trembles harder.

The spanking had hurt, a lot. His bottom had been so red after, and the headmaster had made him stand in the corner with his hands on his head so he could see, watching Will as he worked. He had rubbed soothing cream on it after, though Will had protested, and Hannibal had told him he was his good boy again.

The disappointment Will is, now, makes him sick. He doesn’t want to be that anymore. He wants to be good again. Even if it does mean a spanking, or hot hands spreading him open.

Will gently extricates himself from Dr. Lecter’s hold and moves back towards the door. Quietly, he closes it and after a hesitation, he lets the lock click in place. He bites his lip and returns back to the man he had disappointed, bending to tug up his socks before he reaches him.

“I don’t want you to be disappointed,” he whispers. “I want to be good.”

“So you say,” agrees the headmaster. “And yet time and again, William, we find ourselves here, guilt weighing down your shoulders and an apology on your lips.”

The boy makes a small sound, aching and ashamed.

“No one else,” Dr. Lecter reminds him, “has so earned my favor. No one else receives such attention as you. I let no other student share in the lessons I reserve for you, William, because no other is as capable. And rather than return that to me, you seek elsewhere. Perhaps I have misjudged you.”

“No,” breathes Will, harsh and sudden. “No, you haven’t - I’m -”

“Do not. Not again. I have heard enough apologies for a lifetime. Perhaps, since you use those words so liberally, we are past the point of words.”

The gentle hand that sweeps Will’s curls from his face tightens, and Will follows the tug without resistance. Hannibal turns Will and lifts him into his lap, seated against the edge of the desk. He releases his hair only to snare an arm around Will’s belly; the other works across the boy’s mouth, pressing two fingers past his lips.

“Show me, then, that I have not wasted my time.”

Will presses a hand against the doctor’s arm and holds on as he parts his lips to suck. He has been taught to, now, a few times with a few different things, and he isn’t very good at it yet, and he knows that Dr. Lecter wants him to get better. He knows that he should practice more, in his room alone, when no one can hear. 

He rubs his tongue against fingertips that roam deeper into his mouth, and when Will gently chokes, the arm around his belly tightens to hold him still. Spit slips past Will’s lips and down his chin. It’s messy and unattractive and he knows that Hannibal abhors mess. He brings his hand up to wipe at his face. His feet dangle, toes pressing to each other in discomfort and worry, but he does not try to squirm free.

This is a special lesson, for a special boy. No one else gets this. No one else is important enough to be allowed to learn.

Will whimpers softly and sucks in a breath through his nose.

Drawing in a deep breath, Hannibal nuzzles the boy’s temple. He whispers, low, for Will to please remove his shorts, but makes no move to help him do so. Nor, for that matter, does the headmaster remove his fingers from where they press to the back of Will’s tongue, stroking deeper when Will curls it against him. Will reaches for his belt with shaking hands, and it takes him a long time to work it free and unzip himself. Tears swell glittering against his lashes and spill from the corners of his eyes, from the strain of moving this way, from the shortness of his breath, from the hard ridge that he can feel pressing against his bottom as soon as he settles back, bare, into Dr. Lecter’s lap.

His shorts and underpants hang around his ankles, but still, Hannibal’s fingers in his mouth are unrelenting. He pushes back further, deeper, and Will’s whole body clenches as he gags, and only then does the headmaster remove them. A sputtering cough wracks Will’s body and he clutches Hannibal’s arm around his waist. He hates himself for choking, he should have practiced, he should have -

“Very good, Will.”

The boy doesn’t argue, though his mind screams otherwise. He is sloppy, his socks are down and there is spit on his face. And it doesn’t matter, so long as Dr. Lecter is happy, it doesn’t matter so long as he spreads his legs a little and makes a sound when Hannibal wraps a hand between Will’s legs, and presses against his opening.

“Do you think, truly, that there is another who would understand this? I don’t,” Hannibal says. “What we share is unique, what I teach you is for you alone. How embarrassing it would be to go to another teacher, or a counselor - even Dr. Bloom - and tell them of this. I would not wish it for you. They could not see what I see in you.”

Will presses his lips together on another small sound and squirms back a little more. Moving forward he would fall, he would look as though he's struggling, disobeying, being bad, when he had just promised to show and prove that he is good.

He doesn’t want to think about anyone else knowing about this. This is special, this is earned, this is just for him. A mantra repeated over and over in a desperate whisper in Will’s mind. That is what Dr. Lecter said. He trusts Dr. Lecter. Dr. Lecter would not lie to him, they trust each other...

And Will had broken that trust.

And now he has to make up for it.

"I don’t -" Will makes another high little sound, as fingers spread his cheeks and hold him vulnerable. "Please -"

The plea is enough to hold the headmaster at pause. For an agonizing moment, Will can hear nothing but the click-hiss of the ended record and his own pulse. He tightens his body to stop from slipping down Hannibal's legs.

Without a word, and still holding the boy in place with a strong arm, Hannibal bends to push off Will's shoes, one by one. His shorts and little white briefs follow, and with far too little effort and far too much ease, Hannibal lifts Will and turns him to facing. Inhaling softly when skinny legs circle his waist to hold on, Dr. Lecter ducks his head to watch his Will. Red-rimmed eyes and damp lashes, spit-slick lips made red from suckling. Cheeks afire with shame and sweet spotted freckles beneath. The headmaster turns his nose into Will's hair, and fills himself with the bramble-dense emotions that permeate the boy's being.

He hears his symphony now, a swelling crescendo. He sees his Baroque beauty, and a hitch in Will's breath that jerks up his shoulders is nearly enough to undo the man. Little arms reach to curl around Hannibal's neck, to stop from slipping to the floor, to press near rather than be pushed away. The headmaster wonders how long it has been since Will was given a hug, since someone told him he was special, since someone knew him to be.

He rests one palm securely at the small of Will's back, and rubs slowly as he holds the boy against him. The other hand comes to curl against his bottom, fingers still damp. Where their bodies meet, Hannibal's cock juts between Will's spread legs, filled thick and heavy, renting up his trousers, and the boy's softened dick rests limp atop it. Slowly, without sudden movements, the headmaster follows the bend of Will's hip, and fans his fingertips across Will's penis.

"Do you wish for our lessons to be at an end?" Dr. Lecter asks, not unkindly. "If you say yes, so it will be. I will not treat you with any more attention than any other student. You would not need come to my office again."

 

Little hands cling tighter around Hannibal's neck and Will trembles. The idea of being forgotten, of being mediocre, of being just like any other student, after being told that without him a symphony would not happen, after being called good and special and knowing that no other students get this...

Will shakes his head, hair gently rubbing against Hannibal’s shirt. The man knows it will smell like his boy long after he has allowed him leave from the office.

"Please don't make me go," Will whispers.

Dr. Lecter sighs as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders rather than two skinny arms holding fast. He rubs Will’s back up and down, up across his neck and into his hair. It is a comforting gesture, not cruel, and his voice carries a rumbling warmth as his lips move across Will’s ear.

“If you do not wish to go,” the headmaster murmurs, “then do not go, William. Come to me instead when you are troubled, and let me ease your mind instead.”

Inching closer against the man, Will squeezes a little nearer. He nods, face still pressed against the headmaster’s slow-beating heart, and only makes a sound when slick fingers curl between his legs to stroke across his hole. The touch is languid, fingertips pressing easy circles over wrinkled, soft skin, penetrating only a little, to give Will time to find his breath again.

The massage feels good, brings a tickling sensation running up and down Will’s body until he shivers and squirms, and makes a sound that is not unhappy. The rubbing continues until Will twists his hands together, until his toes curl a little, and when Hannibal presses the tip of one finger into him, Will gasps in a breath and holds it.

"Who else would do this?" The headmaster muses. "Who else would teach you with such gentleness? With such patience.” He pushes a little deeper into the boy and Will wriggles to try and get away. Not yet a struggle but enough of a reluctance that the stretch is too much, too uncomfortable. Hannibal hums and Will curls little hands in the collar of his shirt, forcing himself still.

Dr. Lecter’s lips drift over Will’s cheek, tasting the feverish heat of his blush and the traces of salt from his tears. They do not close into a kiss, nothing so intimate as that, but he passes them down the stricken tendons of Will’s jaw, lower to the curve of his neck. Each shift of movement, mouth and hips and hands, perform in tandem. As the headmaster rolls his stiff cock up against the boy splayed over his lap, so too does he press his finger a little deeper, as steady as the beat of his own heart.

When he reaches his second knuckle, Will whimpers into his shoulder. He stops squirming and settles still, hands clenched into fists so tight that his arms shake around Hannibal’s neck. He won’t cry again, he won’t disappoint Dr. Lecter again. He will be good, he will let himself be touched.

A stubborn breath hitches, and the sound of it builds into a rumbled purr from the headmaster.

Will has been told it will feel good once he has accepted the lessons, once he has learned that pain and pleasure can be one. Once in a while, a touch will send Will’s little body to sparking in pleasure. When the headmaster uses his tongue, spreading Will’s little cheeks wide and tickling the skin with rubs and slicks from the strong muscle. When the headmaster strokes Will’s little cock and whispers praises against his hair.

Those lessons Will likes, those he remembers in fond nostalgia when pain pulls sharp in his muscles as it does now. He has been told that he will learn to take Dr. Lecter entirely, that he will learn to stretch and arch and feel him slowly push in. Will can’t imagine it. The doctor is too big. Surely, surely, he cannot stretch so much?

The finger pushes deeper and Will whimpers louder, muscles clenching tight.

“Breathe,” whispers Dr. Lecter. “I know it is uncomfortable, but I will not hurt you.” The movement of his mouth against Will’s ear tickles and the boy squirms, gasping when his muscles pull tighter instead around the headmaster’s finger, entirely inside him now. Hannibal lifts a hand and strokes Will’s hair back from his face, cradling the back of his head to keep Will against his chest.

“Trust in me, now. Trust that I will only do what is best for you, and what I know you are capable of achieving,” he murmurs. “Remarkable boy.”

The second fingertip is enough that Will shudders, a sob ratchets from his throat, and he holds so tightly to Hannibal that the man is forced to lift his chin to free his airway again from the little shoulder shoved against it. Will’s thighs tremble, quivering tighter, splaying wider, anything to ease the stretch that seems to split him in two.

And yet the stretch gets worse, as Hannibal's finger pushes past the tight virgin ring of muscle, untouched by anyone but himself, Will makes a very discontented sound. Hannibal presses his wrist against Will’s lower back to hold him secure, and brings his free hand down to stroke the boy’s cock again, grown limp once more from the pain.

"Beautiful boy, look how good you're being," he whispers, as Will clenches and relaxes on seemingly every exhale. He is caught in a whirlwind of confusion and contradiction. He is good but he is punished, this is painful but his cock responds regardless, he is taking two fingers but surely, surely they are too big.

"Take both," Hannibal tells him. "Sit back against my hand, Will."

And Will does. Enough that it hurts, a lot, but he does. Because he promised to be good.

For a moment, it is all Hannibal can do to watch Will, just as he is. The boy keeps himself balanced, despite the dizziness each time he blinks. Skinny legs, only the first downy dusting hair across his thighs, press shaking over Hannibal’s lap. He trembles harder each time Hannibal’s hand curls tighter around Will’s cock, little enough even as it swells that the headmaster’s grip nearly covers it entirely. Bowing his head, Will’s curls spill forward enough to hide his eyes, but his teeth grit behind flushed lips, as stark a contrast as his blotchy blush is against white cheeks.

“I have, I think, never known anything so beautiful as you.”

Will chokes back a desperate sound at the praise, as gentle as the stretch is agonizing inside him. Hannibal turns his fingers slowly to let the boy feel how they move, smoothing out the wrinkled skin around his opening. The boy can hardly breathe for it, and what little gasps remain in him snip shorter as Hannibal begins to curl his fingers.

“Do you trust me?”

“It hurts,” Will whispers, breathless, fingers curling against Hannibal’s shoulder until he almost hurts him, too. It’s endearing, the sweetness of his voice, the innocence of his words. Everything hurts, in life, and William would learn that soon enough. It is a mercy he has the lessons early, to prepare him, to make him stronger and more resilient.

“That isn’t what I asked, Will.”

The boy swallows and shivers, shaking his head. For a moment more he says nothing, body throbbing and heart racing, dizzy and a little sick from this. With another little whimper, Will nods his head.

Hannibal watches a sigh unfurl Will’s lips, pink tongue touching just to the center of them. He would kiss him, if only to savor the sweetness of his mouth, if it were not so entirely inappropriate. Instead, Hannibal rolls his fingers a little tighter around Will’s cock, stroking in patient, easy tugs to feel the boy harden despite himself.

“Good boy,” Hannibal tells him. “My clever Will.”

In increments, the headmaster slinks his heels outward. Will’s legs widen, spread across him, his body tightens just a twitch further and Hannibal swallows back a deep, low sound at the pressure, hot and perfect, around his fingers. Will trusts him, he has bared himself, brought himself to be bared, bent and spread and asked so sweetly for all that Hannibal has offered him, and drank down every drop of praise or punishment as if he had not ever heard such words before. Perhaps he has not.

He has certainly, at any rate, never felt what Hannibal shares with him now.

Despite the rising, panted whimpers of alarm that fill the air soft as moth’s wings between them, Hannibal bends his fingers just enough to find the smooth, almond-sized gland inside him. And he watches, through hooded eyes and a ravenous gaze, Hannibal watches, and draws a breath as Will does, when he rubs.

The boy’s cry is music, it is an entirely symphony in its own right. High and pitched and desperate. His little nails dig into Hannibal’s shoulder through his shirt and he hopes, in some distant way, that there are little tears in it, come next morning, so he has something to punish his beautiful boy for.

He keeps stroking, rubbing against his prostate as Will all but sobs against him, and then he does sob, heaving, needy little things as his thighs clench and his muscles tense and his little cock leaks clear against Hannibal’s palm. He is close, he is shaking and flushed and he is so truly beautiful.

Hannibal lifts a hand, smearing Will’s own mess across the boy’s red lips as he tilts his chin up to watch his face, to watch his eyes widen, shining and bright and as confused as he is aroused. Beautiful, beautiful boy. His beautiful boy.

“Does it feel good, Will?”

The boy’s lips press hard together, part, a sticky thread of precome between his lips before it splits as Will sighs heavily against it. He nods, a shaky thing, and makes another of those beautiful sounds again.

“It feels good, and it hurts and -”

His frantic words are quieted into a little moan as Hannibal skims a thumb through a viscous bead on Will’s bottom lip, and feeds it back to him. The headmaster’s lips part in sympathy as Will’s close around his finger, suckling his own mess away with breathtaking obedience. He has learned, in their time together, he has become more striking than Hannibal might ever have imagined. Each weak pulse of pressure against his finger is mirrored in the clenching of muscle around Hannibal’s fingers, still circling slow and remorseless against his prostate.

“Can you come for me, William?” Dr. Lecter’s voice is low, roughened by the desire his remarkable boy stirs in him. The gentle nod that follows, the glittering tears that dampen his lashes and spill down scarlet cheeks, it’s nearly enough to undo the man entirely, and he leans close to touch his tongue to the join of his thumb and Will’s obedient mouth, a shiver curling up Hannibal’s spine at the taste of it.

He gently tugs his thumb free, slow, to watch the way Will’s lips pull at it even still, and returns his hand to the boy’s cock, flushed red and full. Curling his palm around the head, Hannibal tugs in tandem with the push of his fingers.

It doesn’t take long. Whatever willpower the boy had held onto to allow himself to be so good breaks like a flood, and with it, he spills hot and sticky over Hannibal’s hand, body near convulsing in his pleasure as he presses close and gasps hot wet breaths against the shoulder of Hannibal’s shirt.

It is messy and innocent, and the relentless stroking does not stop even when Will has spent himself entirely. He squirms then, helpless little pleas for Hannibal to stop when he is so sensitive, when he can’t possibly have any more.

Resting his cheek against Will’s hair, Dr. Lecter hushes him gently as he milks the boy dry. Steady pressure, pushed inside of him, slowing strokes, to feel every slick drip squeezed from his cock. And then, so soft that his words are scarcely a whisper, Hannibal praises him. Again and again, as he slips one finger out of Will, that he is extraordinary. Again and again, as the other follows, telling his boy that he is clever and brave. Again and again as Hannibal slips his arm around Will’s waist and holds him trembling, before offering up his semen-sticky fingers towards Will’s mouth:

“Good boy.”

Will swallows, throat constricting at the thought of having to suck again, but he does, regardless, parting his lips to take in Hannibal’s fingers, one at a time, to suck clean. And with every one, he is praised again, and with every praise, Will’s entire body trembles for more.

He has done well.

He has not disappointed Dr. Lecter.

His throat clicks when he’s finished, lips red and dripping spit down his chin until he lifts a little hand to wipe himself clean again. He raises his eyes now, seeking, pleading, to know that he has been forgiven for the morning misstep.

The headmaster does not rest his hand against the boy’s face, too much like punishment now, no matter how striking he finds Will when he defiled and dirty. But he leans, touching brow to brow, then cheek to cheek, a languid nuzzle sighed long against Will’s skin.

“I am very proud of you, William,” he murmurs. “For your honesty, and your trust in me. I know that when next you are troubled, you will come to me directly for guidance, won’t you?”

A little nod is met with a warm hum, and gentle knuckles against the boy’s jaw. Hannibal follows the arch of his neck, along the sleeve of his jumper, and gently grasps Will’s wrist in his hand. It is so small beneath his fingers, bird-boned and delicate, eminently graceful in its frailty. He presses his thumb in a slow circle against Will’s palm to feel the tendons and metacarpals shift together, and moves Will’s hand down his chest, across the buttons of his jacket, further still to rest against the ridge still throbbing between his legs.

“One more lesson, then, for tonight - since you have proved yourself so capable.”

Will’s brows draw together and his lips stay parted, trying to catch his breath as his hand is guided harder down against Dr. Lecter’s cock.

He remembers it, its ridges and throbbing vein, he remembers how it smells and how heavy it is on his tongue. He remembers how little of it he had managed between his lips before he had choked, before he had been told that the headmaster was not angry at him, he was disappointed.

Will shivers, sets his fingers around him and bites his lip hard enough to pale it. He brings his other hand down to press alongside the first and strokes, trying not to look at himself, spent and messy, spread in the man’s pristine lap. He rubs until he feels the heat of it through the fabric, until he feels it twitch up against his fingers.

Will raises his eyes, seeing if he’s doing well, and hopes, _hopes_ , that he will not be made to suck today.

He cannot control the sound that escapes when he sees Dr. Lecter watching his eyes, rather than his hands.

A smile curves the man’s lips, fanning wrinkles beside his eyes, drawing up the muscle beneath. He does not relent in his gaze, memorizing every movement in Will’s features, the particular cardinal red of his lips, the sheen of pearly white drying pale around them. Will’s curls cling sweat-damp to his face, ivory skin darkening beneath his eyes and over the bridge of his nose as he’s watched, as he works, as he splays and curls little fingers, pressing his palms against his headmaster’s cock.

He relents only when the boy’s eyes shimmer, damp, and ducks his head to watch Will’s little hands at work. Lifting his hips to meet Will’s unsteady rhythm, he guides the boy wordlessly into synchronicity, as a conductor signals from _piano_ to _forte_ , from _largo_ to _allegro_. Though the shifts in dynamic are not made smoothly, Will responds. He pushes back harder when Hannibal rocks forward; he rubs quicker as Hannibal speeds his own undulations.

It is cruel, perhaps, to make Will wait for his reward, considering that Hannibal might have finished his own movement from the moment he felt Will spread across his lap and slip his arms around his neck. The weight of his skinny body across Hannibal’s own has always been enough, the sheer potential of the boy to some day bend beneath him and take him whole satisfying even in the imagining. Pressing his lips apart with his tongue, the headmaster lets his head lower, and does not keep his satisfaction from the boy any longer, dampening his trousers with the force of his release, pulsing through enough to soak against Will’s slender fingers.

The boy’s motions still, fingers slowly pulling away to just hover over the fabric, now, no longer touching. He is panting quietly, breathless still from his own release, and from the effort to bring Hannibal to his. He will learn. He will get better. He will grow to endure so much more than a simple fingering. One day, Hannibal imagines, as he brings a hand up to stroke knuckles warm down Will’s cheek, he will watch the boy with his release spilling from his lips as he tries desperately to catch his breath.

One day.

As though he knows, Will swallows. As though he can feel the thoughts caress him, he blushes darker.

“Did I do well?” He whispers.

The question is so softly spoken, so entirely genuine, that Hannibal feels his breath catch in just the same way as when an aria lifts to its crescendo. He spreads his fingers over Will’s cheek, searching between blue eyes rimmed with red, and gently tucks a curl of hair behind the boy’s ear. Hannibal leans, just a little, as if by breath alone he might kiss the sweetness of Will’s words from his lips.

He reminds himself, even so near, that he is a professional, and with a swallow that clicks his throat, leans away again. A faint smile catches once more beneath his eyes, and he lifts Will’s chin with the side of his finger.

“Very well, sweet boy. And how fortunate we are that there is still so much to learn.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...y'all want more, don't you.


End file.
